Honoring Local Law Enforcement Heroes
There are people across Pennsylvania who are doing amazing work every day to positively impact their communities, whether it is helping fight food insecurity, discovering new treatments to eradicate disease or keeping their neighbors safe.
Rep. Joanna E. McClinton December 4, 2024 | 11:26 AM
There are people across Pennsylvania who are doing amazing work every day to positively impact their communities, whether it is helping fight food insecurity, discovering new treatments to eradicate disease or keeping their neighbors safe. They are heroes.
To recognize the incredible work of some of these heroic Pennsylvanians, I recently established the Speaker’s Meritorious Service Medal. The new award recognizes people who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of our commonwealth, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors.
This year, for the inaugural award, I selected nine members of the Philadelphia Police Department’s 12th District who responded to the mass shooting in Kingsessing the day before the Fourth of July in 2023. Each of these officers selflessly put themselves in harm’s way to provide care to the injured, secure the area to keep residents safe and apprehend the gunman.
I invited the nine officers to the state Capitol to be recognized in the House chamber on the final day of voting session for the 2023-24 legislative session. Each officer received a medal and a citation, and the group received a warm welcome and standing ovation from legislators of both parties.
The 2024 Speaker’s Meritorious Service Medal honorees are:
- Patrol Officer Richard Dillard
- Patrol Officer Laquisha Robinson
- Patrol Officer Samyra Pacha
- Patrol Officer Natasha Chestnut
- Patrol Officer Raymond Fountain
- Patrol Officer Masoeli Musogne
- Patrol Officer Ryan Howell
- Sergeant Jeffery Donahue
- Officer Anthony Curtosi
For photos from the recognition event, visit my Flickr (@RepMcClinton).
Everyday officers across the state put on their uniforms and say goodbye to their families without knowing what the day will hold. The nine officers the state House honored in November are representative of other law enforcement officials across Pennsylvania, which is why I and my colleagues have worked hard to support law enforcement and improve public safety for everyone.
In the past two years, we’ve passed new laws and made many investments to make our communities safer. We updated antiquated standards to make recruiting new police officers in Philadelphia easier, drove millions of dollars in Violence Prevention grants to local groups to help address violence in the community, and dedicated $5 million to the Philadelphia Crime lab to help solve crimes faster and keep our communities safer.
There is more we need to tackle in the upcoming legislative session. While House Democrats have advanced commonsense gun safety bills and a plan to strengthen our mental health system in the past session, we need to build consensus with Republicans in the Senate and push them to pass these measures too, and to send them to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s desk.
I’m hopeful that we will be able to address these issues and others when the new legislative session kicks off in January.
A great way to learn about what I am doing in Harrisburg to help our community and to know about events I host in the neighborhood is to visit my website and sign up for my e-newsletter. The e-newsletter comes out once a week and is full of information about local events, job fairs, state resources and other helpful information.